Bovensiepen 05 GT: A Super Wagon with Subtle Swagger

There’s a wry kind of defiance in the Bovensiepen 05 GT. It looks calm, almost understated. Then you peel back the skin and find a snarling heart. That tension — elegance on the surface, excess under the hood — is exactly the point.

The Bovensiepen name resurfaced after the family sold Alpina to BMW, and they didn’t return to the workshop to sip tea. First came the Zagato coachbuilt M4 in 2025, hand-built in Buchloe with a carbon body, double-bubble roof and a bespoke interior. Power was nudged from the M4’s 3.0 straight-six up to 603 horsepower, and the Zagato began at roughly 368,000 euros.

Power under discreet skin

The 05 GT follows the same script. It’s based on the BMW M5 Touring, but Bovensiepen has peeled back the donor’s aggressive angles and given the estate a quieter, more refined voice: softer bumpers, a cleaner mesh grille and new wheel designs that read more composed than confrontational. Frank Stephenson lent his design hand to the project, dialing down bravado and favoring proportion and poise instead.

Inside, finishes feel artisanal. The steering wheel is hand-stitched in barrel-dyed Lavalina leather sourced from select farms across central Europe. Touchpoints, the iDrive controller and center console wear leather. Each cockpit carries a custom-engraved numbered plaque on the dash, the kind of detail that reads like a signature.

The headline: under that polished skin sits a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8, integrated with a plug-in hybrid system and tuned to deliver 790 horsepower and 811 pound-feet of torque, a clear leap from the stock M5 Touring.

Those numbers — 790 hp (800 PS) and 811 lb-ft (1,100 Nm) — turn the 05 GT into a serious performance wagon. Official sprint numbers remain similar to the donor: sub-3.6 seconds to 100 kph and a top speed in the region of 305 kph. All that force is carried by a car that weighs around 2,555 kilograms, slightly heavier than the standard M5 Touring but hardly cumbersome given the output.

Handling tweaks include new Eibach springs with custom valving. An Akrapovič titanium exhaust not only trims about 7.8 kilograms but gives the V8 a vocal signature that contrasts with the car’s restrained look. The 21-inch forged multi-spoke wheels wear bespoke Pirelli rubber stamped with BOV on the sidewalls — a small flourish that keeps the car’s identity clear without screaming for attention.

There’s a lot of craft here. The goal wasn’t to out-shout the modern performance wagon crowd with gimmicks and oversized wings. Bovensiepen wanted a polished alternative: the raw capability of an M5 Touring, shaped into something more discreet, more tailored.

Production will start in the fourth quarter, and Bovensiepen positions the 05 GT as a premium proposition. Prices begin at 198,900 euros, roughly 50,000 euros above a standard BMW M5 Touring in Germany. For buyers who want a practical estate that can carry the weekend kit and still embarrass supercars at the lights, this is a compelling, characterful choice.